I agree with Gast, the point of playing these games isn't to play something original they created, it's to play the game that they played over in Japan, or at least close enough. If they want to make their own game and story, they can go do it themselves and not twist another creation to do so. I don't care about all the jokes and whatnot, however; if it's something particularly funny that can be translated well, then I want it kept. But if it's some pun that only makes sense in japanese, then figure out a good replacement or just pretend it was never there.

If something like Phoenix Wright can be translated, I think Sakura Taisen can be translated as a perfectly enjoyable game, even if they have to practically rewrite the jokes. As long as they can retain the spirit or close enough and keep the same sense of humor, I'll be happy. However, I honestly doubt that Sega of America can pull it off.

With all that said, I can perfectly enjoy a game that's ben completely changed as long as it's good, but I /will/ care, and at the very least will find it fairly annoying.

Personally, I think it's pointless and a waste. It'd be a nice novelty if they were cheap like you said, but as it is... It's a portable DVD. Might be handy for the road trips, but outside of that, why waste my money?

I'd probably be in a better position to offer my opinion though had I actually owned a PSP and some UMD movies.

I dunno. Some things just are't important enough for me to care about, such as alcohol, plus something like that can be changed while leaving it open enough to let you interpret it as alcohol /anyway/ while not beating you over the head that it's not; Grandia's a good example of 'beating you over the head that it's not' while something like Cider in FFVI I thought was alcohol anyway. I don't care about cigarettes either, but unlike alcohol the only things you can do are either removing it entirely or leaving it there.

Not all situations are the same though, and for some things changing them in such ways gets more annoying. DDS is a dark and mature title, so trying to chop that down to a T rating would be worth of getting pissed off over, and doing something like removing alcohol in that, while not very important to the story, would be more irritating simply because if you can handle the rest of the content, the liquor is just fine. Example that comes to mind where that kind of hacking just doesn't work is Rurouni Kenshin on Toonami; it was just too bloody at times to be on at that schedule. Meanwhile, it really doesn't matter for a game like Tales of Symphonia or your standard Mario RPG. ToS is so light hearted that it wasn't worth jeopardizing sales over something as minor as alcohol, and even if the job with covering it up in M&L and PM2 is blatantly obvious, having booze in either of those games feels out of place anyway.

Like John noted, it isn't limited to things brought over from Japan. The Matrix example he listed is fucking horrendous, and what they replaced many of the original words with makes lines like 'son of a submariner' seem offensive. Hell, it isn't even limited to stuff released here getting censored, games like SMT had to have minor details changed from console to console, and /Skies of Arcadia/ got the cigarettes cut when ported from the Dreamcast to the GameCube. I think we oughta just be thankful that people are caring less and less anymore.

You're confusing EP and IS, and I really don't see the problem with Nazis short of actually siding with them. IS doesn't do this as far as I can tell, and we've had plenty of games and movies where Nazis are antagonists; it kinda perplexes me when they worry about those while games here casually do it, and this applies to other issues as well. If anything, I think it was the timing of the game's release and the 'hey look, teens with guns!' thing that screwed it over, since it was released in Japan around when Colombine happened. People have calmed down about it now, but we still have those scars.

As for 'commercial art', I think it's important to consider just how important an offensive aspect is to the story and point of what they're doing. If it's there to prove a point and not merely be offensive, then I want it kept at all costs, and at worst tuned down while retaining the message and meaning. Something like the inclusion of alcohol doesn't count more often than not in this regard. :P

Oh, and the thing I wanted to add: for dubs and subs I tend to be neutral, but leaning a bit towards subtitles. Unless you know the language or whatever, listening to it in japanese is going to be like smearing vasoline over your TV screen; you get the general idea, but you won't be able to tell the finer details such as nuances on specific words that well. And if either it's a really good dub, or the dub is more fitting anyway (I don't expect to hear japanese out of the mouths of Americans, and vice versa), I'll stick with that. Also, nine times out of ten I hate including battle cries and the like in battle, so if I can switch it to japanese and just make it a bunch of nonsensical jibber jabber shouted throughout, I'll gladly do so.

Jesus Christ, stop being retarded. It's not supposed to be a gaming system, it's just a mini PC that runs Windows Tablet XP. It's just another standardized portable platform factor-- ASUS and Samsung already have prototypes.

To be fair, outside of the initial reply and a nonsensical comparison on Hidoshi's part, this time around everyone seemed to either have realized that or just hadn't brought it up, such as the expression of disappointment that it wasn't really a portable gaming system.

Still though, outside of the whole 'ZOMG HALO' screens, there really wasn't much that made this look like a gaming handheld in the first place. The movie from a year ago focused on way more than that, and how the site is designed seemed to be aiming more for a broad audience ala Windows XP, and not a specific audience like the X360 commercials and sites.

Edit: Just in case someone wants to resurrect the whole 'HANDHELD GAMING SYSTEM' thing despite everything we just said, I'd like to note the official name of the device: Ultra-Mobile PC. Boring name that sounds more like something you'd say in the advertizing slogan than the actual name of the device, but I'll be damned if it doesn't get the point across. :P

Wow, now here's a score worth complaining about. Though, while the score's pretty low, the review doesn't really come off as very negative, yet manages to give strong reasoning for why it deserved the score it got.

Edit: Note that I don't consider the reviewer an idiot or whatever for giving it a low score; I'm just noting that it's a lot closer to a legitimate complaint than what Captain Moron was doing earlier. :P

Apparantly this just came out a week ago in Japan, and since we haven't had a topic yet on these boards, I'm starting this up. Anyone heard any opinions from importers and the like on this game? Still think it looks awesome, 'course. :P

Dude.. to go forward in parts of Omikron, you need to die to inhabit another body.

-John

Now see, that makes sense, this just seems to be doing it for the sake of doing it.

It's worth noting, on the other hand, that one of the Killer7 characters would slit her wrists and spray blood to open new pathes, and that really didn't bug me - probably because it wasn't THE main character doing it, she wasn't a teenager, and that whole game was nuts anyway.

I have to agree with Hidoshi on the whole 'head shooting thing' as far as how disturbing it is - actually, it just comes off as stupid. Maybe it makes sense to have a villian do it who lets himself be controlled by his Persona, symbolising that he's just fucking himself over. But this seems to be more 'OMFG CONTROVERSY'. I won't miss seeing it go. :P

Edit: Though for it effecting localization... Well, if he was an adult, it'd probably have been allowed; Killer 7 has a character who slits her wrists to reveal hidden paths. But this is a /teenager/, and while the whole Columbine thing has probably faded away enough that people won't care quite as much, it was enough to edit a part of XSII.

If I gave an 8 to something than I would give a reason, not just a quarter of a page review on how the cast isn't as good as the old one.

For an RPG where the story/cast are important, that would be very significant to what the score is. Plus sometimes there just isn't a very good reason: Phoenix Wright is great and doesn't really do anything wrong, yet I'd only give it an 8, and the same for Ys VI. Maybe she felt the same way.

As for SH:C's 10 to SH3's 8: May not be the same reviewer, or that things weren't mixed up enough to warrant keeping it a 10.

Edit: And again with editing right before I post. No, she was not complaining about the setting, she was noting how the setting was different. Different =! Worse /or/ better. Just different.